LB 2325 
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AN- 



ADDEESS 



LIMITS OF EDUCATION, 



READ BEFORE THE 



Pa^^acftu^ftt^ f tt^tituk ot ^fchiwlagjjt 



NOVEMBER 16, 1865. 



By JACOB BIGELOW, M. D. 



BOS T O N : 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY, 

135 Washinqton, cohnkh op ScnooL Strret. 

1865. 



i.SS'^'^^ 



,3S 



At a meeting of tlic MASSj^cauiEiis Lvstitlte or TucaxoLOGT, held 
on the 16th inst., ir was 

Toted, That the thanks of the Institute be presented to Db. Bigelow, 
for the interesting and instructire Address br him read this evening, and 
that, with'his permission, the same be printed for and at the expense of the 
Institute. - - . 

Attest, 

THOMAS II. WEBB, Secretaut. 



HSXST W. DCTX05 & SOS, PRESTSSS, 

^J i- 92 WAsaufixoar sraast. 



ADDEESS. 



In 1829 a volume was published in Boston bearing the 
name of "Elements of Technology." This name was not 
then in use nor was it generally understood, except by those 
who drew its meaning from its etymology. It was not in 
Johnson's Dictionary, nor yet in Rees's Cyclopaedia. In 
Worcester's Dictionary, where it now has a place, no older 
authority is cited for its support than that of the volume 
alluded to. Its analogue indeed was extant in some other 
languages, and fifty years ago was published in Latin among 
the " Theses " of the graduating class of Harvard College. 
But its revival for the use of English readers had to be justi- 
fied by the assertion that it might be found in some of the 
older dictionaries. 

Such, less than forty years ago, was the doubtful tenure in 
Enolish literature of a Avord which now (Axes name in this 
city to a vigorous and popular institution, a large endow- 
ment, a magnificent edifice, and at the same time a great and 
commanding department of scientific study in every (piartcr 
of the civilized world. 

It has happened In regard to technology tliat in tlic present 
century and almost under our own eyes. It has aihanced with 
o-reater strides than any other aovnt of civilization, and Inus 
done; more than iwiy science to enhu'ge the boundaries of 
profitable knowledge;, to exten;! the dominion of mankind 
over nature, to ecoiiomizi' and ulili/.e both lalu r and t.me. 



and thus to add indefinitely to the effective and available 
length of human existence. And next to the influence of 
Christianity on our moral nature, it has had a leading sway 
in promoting the progress and happiness of our race. 

To appreciate what has been done by the applied sciences 
operating through their dependent and associate arts, we 
have only to go back a little more than two thirds of a 
century, to the times of Franklin and Washington, and in 
many cases to those of our own immediate fathers. In those 
days of small things, men were compelled to pass their lives 
in a sort of destitution which in this age of scientific luxury 
would be considered a state of semi-barbarism. The means 
of domestic convenience, personal neatness, easy locomotion, 
rapid intelligence, agreeable warmth, abundant light, physical 
as well as intellectual, were things wished and waited for, but 
not yet found. 

To us, their effeminate descendants, it might be painfully 
interesting to witness the efforts of those hardy and much 
enduring people to procure warmth in their dwellings, by the 
scorchino; and freezlno; of their alternate sides, under the 
blast that swept from many apertures towards the current of 
a vast open chimney. And this state of things was hardly 
bettered by the established zero temperature of an unwarmed 
church, or the Irrespirable atmosphere of a stove-heated 
school room or country court house. Our recent progenitors 
read their dusky and infrequent newspaper by the light of a 
tallow candle, and groped their way through dark and 
unpaved streets under the guidance of a peripatetic lantern. 
If in summer they desired a draught of cold water, there 
was no ice ; and if in winter they wished for dry feet, there 
was no India rubbar. If in darkness they sought for light, 
there was neither gas nor even luclfer matches. 

Men were stationary in their habits and deliberate under 
their necessities. He who would communicate with a friend 



in a neighboring State might do it in a week, provided he 
could devote a preparatory week to seeking a safe private 
conveyance. And if any one had occasion to tranv«port himself 
from one town or city to another, he coukl do it on a trusty 
saddle horse, or still more rapidly in the organized relays of 
the Boston and New York stage coach " Despatch Line," 
which undertook to put him through in less than a week. 
They who went down to the sea in ships could reach England 
from either of the above named ports in from one to two 
months if wind and weather were favorable. Literary pro- 
ductions were written out with a goosequill, and printed in a 
reasonable time by the labor of two men toiling at a hand 
press. Housewives plied the spinning-wheel, the distaiF and 
the shuttle, and webs of coarse texture grew into perceptible 
existence with a speed which might be compared to that of a 
growing vegetable. Beef was roasted on a revolving spit, 
turned round by a man, a dog, or a smoke jack. And what 
will hereafter be accounted still more strange, garments were 
made by sewing slowly together their constituent parts with 
a needle and thread. 

I have taken technology as a leading exponent of the great 
advance which was to be made, and has been made, during 
the lifetime of some of us, in certain intellectual and practical 
improvements of mankind, in supplying the wants, overcom- 
ino; the difficulties and increasino; the elej^anccs of life. To 
enumerate all these improvements would simply be to recount 
the great steps by which our own age has advanced to the 
elevated and privileged condition in which we now see it. 
And yet, although the practical arts, in the hands of science, 
have taken the lead in the great visible changes of tlic 
present century, it would be presumptuous to call technology 
the only field from the cultivation of which mankind have 
obtained abundant and unlooked for harvests. In every 
other walk or sphere of science, literature and refined 



6 

Immanlty, the civilized world, with unfaltering progress, h.is 
pushed forward, at the same time, its dominion over mind 
and matter. 

It is the object of the present remarks to show that the 
amount of knowledge appropriate to civilization which now 
exists in the world is more than double, and in many cases 
more than tenfold, what it was about half a century ago, and 
that therefore no individual can expect to grasp in the limits 
of a lifetime even an elementary knowledge of the many 
provinces of old learning, augmented as they now are by the 
vast annexations of modern discovery. Still farther, educa- 
tion which represents the threshold of accessible knowledge. 
Instead of being expanded, must be contracted in the number 
and amount of its requirements, so that while all its doors arc 
freely kept open to those who possess time, opportunity and 
special aptitude or necessity, a part of them at least must be 
closed to those who do not possess those requisites. If in 
the days of the ancient Greeks " life was short," while " art 
was long," how is it now, when life is not longer, but art, 
literature and science are Immeasurably greater? How will 
it be in another half century, when new discoveries shall 
have arisen commensurate in their results with those of 
electro-magnetism and of solar actinism, of modern optical 
combinations and geographical and geological explorations ? 
How will it be with the discoveries of newly armed astrono- 
mers and the calculations of geometers yet to appear, — with 
revolutions stirred up by chemists among elements that have 
slumbered together since the creation, — with the augmented 
conversions of heat into force, driving innumerable mechan- 
isms to minister to man's pleasure and power, — and more 
than all, how will it be with the cumbrous, vast and insur- 
mountable weight of books, which shall render literary 
distinction a thing of chance, of uncertainty, perhaps even 
of impossibility. 



A law which obtauis in matter, obtauis also in reo^ard to 
tlie mind and its acquirements, that strength is not increased 
in proportion to magnitude. The static and dynamic strength 
of materials for the most part decreases as their bulk in- 
creases. A column or a bridge cannot be carried beyond a 
certain size without crushing or breaking its substance, and 
a whale, if unsupported by the surrounding water, would die 
from the pressure of his own weight. A small animal will 
leap many more times his length than a large one, and the 
integrity of his slender limbs w^ill not be injured by the exer- 
tion. The useful development of a tree is known to be 
promoted by severe pruning, and where this is impossible, as 
in primeval forests, the trees prune themselves and attain 
greater height by the death of their under branches, the in- 
sufficient supply of sunlight being monopolized by the upper 
and dominant members at the expense of the lower. These 
examples, drawn both from inert and organic matter, may 
serve to illustrate the corresponding truth that human intellect, 
though varying in capacity in different individuals, has its lim- 
its in all plans of enlargement by acquisition, and that these 
limits cannot be transcended without aggregate deterioration 
in distracting the attention, overloading the memory or over- 
working the brain and sapping the foundations of health. 

The school system of New England is at the present 
moment our glory and our shame. We feel a just pride that 
among us education is accessible to all, because our pid)Hc 
schools arc open to the humblest persons. But in our zeal 
for general instruction, we sometimes forget that a majority 
of men and women must labor with their hands, that the 
world may not stand still, and that all may not lose by disuse 
the power to labor. We cannot train all our boys to be 
statesmen and divines, nor all our girls to be authors and 
l(H!turers or even teachers. We ought not, therefore, to drive 
them into the false position of expecting to attain by extraor- 



8 

dinary effort a place wlilcli neither nature nor circumstances 
have made possible. Many unfortunate children have been 
ruined for life, in body and mind, by being stimulated with 
various inducements to make exertions bevond their ao^e and 
mental capacity. A feeble frame and a nervous temperament 
are the too sure consequences of a brain overworked in child- 
hood. Slow progress, rather than rapid growth, tends to 
establish vigor, health and happiness. It has always ap- 
peared to me that a desirable and profitable mode of school 
education would be one in which every hour of study should 
be offset by another hour of exercise required to be taken in 
the open air. 

To illustrate the impossibility of making any one what may 
be called a o-eneral scholar, we need but to take a slio-ht view 
of the extent and recent progress of a few of the most famil- 
iar and popular sciences at the present day. Let us take 
geography, which treats of the earth's external structure, and 
geology which treats of its internal. In the first of these the 
education of many of the present generation abounded in 
Avhat are now found to be errors and defects. We were 
tauo'ht that the Andes were the hio-hest mountains of the 
o'lobe, and the Amazon the longest river. Discoverers had 
then stopped a thousand miles short of the sources of the Nile 
and of the Missouri. The Columbia and the Sacramento 
were geographical myths, while a fabulous Oregon or Kiver 
of the West was laid down on the maps on the hearsay 
authority of Carver, displacing what are now the Rocky 
Mountains, and entering the Pacific Ocean about latitude 43°. 
The existence of the African Xio^er was knoAvn to the Ro- 
mans, yet the Royal Geographical Society until 1830 did not 
know where it reached the ocean, though a hundred English- 
men at various times had laid down their lives in African 
deserts in fr'uitless attempts to resolve the mysterious problem. 
It was not until a still later period that the world knew that 



9 

there was a continuous Arctic Sea, or any thing like an Ant- 
arctic continent. 

But if so much has been done in the more difficult and in- 
accessible parts of our globe, how much more has been 
achieved in the parts accessible to settlement and cultivation. 
The American continent, the interior map of which was 
almost a blank at the close of our Revolution, is now profusely 
dotted with towns, cities, forts, post offices and rail stations, 
until the most diligent compiler of a Gazetteer is obliged to 
pause in despair at the manifest defects of his latest edition. 

Geology may be considered as almost- a creation of the 
present age. When Werner visited Paris, in 1802, it could 
hardly be said to consist of more than insulated observations 
with a few crude and unsettled theories. But now it has be- 
come a great, organized, and overshadowing department of 
science. In every language of Europe it has its voluminous 
systems and its unfailing periodicals. Societies of special 
organization carry forward its labors, and every country of 
the globe is traversed by its observers and collectors. The 
shelves of museums are weighed down by its accumulations, 
and in its palasontology alone the Greek language is ex- 
hausted to furnisli factitious names for the continually 
developed species of antecedent creations. 

Chemistry in a limited degree appears to have attracted the 
attention of the ancients, but of their proficiency in this pur- 
suit we know more from their preserved relics and results 
than from their cotemporaneous records. In modern times 
the chemists constitute a philosophical comnmnity having 
a language of their own, a history of their own, methods, 
pursuits and controversies of their own, and a domain which 
is coextensive with the materials of which our globe Is made. 
Many men of gifted minds and high intellectual attainments, 
have devoted their lives to the prosecution of this science. 
Chemistry has unravelled tiie early mysteries of our planet, 



]0 

and has liad a leaJino; a";encv in chann;ino; the arts and the 
economy of human life. It now fills the civilized world with 
its libraries, laboratories and lecture-rooms. Xo individual 
can expect to study even its accessible books, still less to 
become familiar with its recorded facts. Yet chemistry is 
probably in its infancy, and opens one of the largest future 
fields for scientific cultivation. 

Natural history in its common acceptation implies the in- 
vestigation, arrangement and description of all natural bodies, 
includino' the whole oro-anized creation. If no other science 
existed but this, there would be labor enough and more than 
enough to employ for life the students and observers of the 
world. Each kingdom of organic nature already offers to 
our acquaintance its hundred thousand specific forms, and 
these are but the vanguard of a still greater multitude be- 
lieved to cover the surface of countries yet unexplored, and 
to fill the mysterious recesses not yet penetrated by the 
microscope. And as far as we know, every one of these 
organisms, great or small, carries with it its parasites, to 
which it affords habitation and food, and which may be sup- 
posed not only to double but to multiply in an unknown ratio 
its original numbers. Again, when we reflect that every 
one of these species has its own anatomy, its physiology, its 
peculiar chemistry, its habits, its sensations, its modes of 
reproduction, its nutrition, its duration, its metamorphoses, 
its diseases and its final mode of destruction, — we may well 
despair of knowing much of the whole, w^hen a single species 
might furnish materials of study for a human lifetime. 

The foregoing are examples of the claim on our attention 
and study advanced by a portion only of the progressive 
sciences. They serve to develop truths and laws appertain- 
ino- to the material earth, which truths and laws must have 
existed had there never been minds to study them. The 
Telations of number and figure, the laws of motion and rest. 



11 

of gravity and affinity, of animal and vegetable life, must 
have been the same had the dominant race of man never 
appeared on earth. But there is another extensive class of 
scientific pursuits, the subjects of which are drawn from his 
% own nature. He has devised metaphysics to illustrate the 

operations of his own mind. He has introduced ethical and 
political science to promote order and happiness, and military 
science to assist for a time at least in destrovlnff both. He 
has built up history with. " her volumes vast," which volumes 
are as yet a small thing compared with those that are to 
come. Under the name of news the press daily inundates 
the world with a million sheets of cotemporaneous history, 
for history and new^s, under small qualifications, are identical. 
The annals of the last four years may deserve as large a place 
in the attention of mankind as was due w^hen the poet Camp- 
bell informed the Egyptian mummy that since his decease, " a 
Ivoman empire had begun and ended." The greatest part of 
what should have been history is unwritten, and of what has 
been written the greatest part is of little general value. If 
all that has actually been committed to papyrus, parchment 
or paper had by chance been preserved from the effects of 
time and barbarism, the aggregate would be so vast and the 
interest so little, that the busy wx^rld could hardly turn aside 
for its examination from more absorbing and necessary pursuits. 
But the world is not contented with history which states, 
or professes to state, the progress, arts, dates, successes and 
failures of distinguished men and nations. It requires 
further, the supplementary aid of fiction which finds llicts, 
not in testimony, but in probability ; not as they are rccordinl 
to have happened, but as they ought to have happened under 
the circumstances and with the actors. Fiction, moreover, 
not being restrained by the limits of circumstantial trutli, is 
at liberty to seek embellishment from exaggeration, from orna- 
ment, from poetry, from dramatic utterance and passionate 



12 

expression. Hence it has taken tlie lead in modern lit- 
erature, and it is not pfobable that at this day the most 
accomplished bibliographer or bookseller could point the 
way to one-half of its multiplied and perishable produc- 
tions. 

There is neither time nor inducement to refer to the 
pseudo-sciences, which in all ages have made serious drafts 
upon the limited lifetime of man, nor to the ephemeral and 
unprofitable issues which consume his time and labor and 
wear out his strength. At the present day we have not 
much to fear from alchemy, palmistry or astrology, nor yet 
from spiritualism, homoeopathy or mormonism. But it is not 
easy to prevent men from wasting their time in the pursuit of 
shadows, from substituting exceptions for general laws, from 
believing things, not because they are probable, but because 
they are wonderful and entertaining. Still less can we divert 
them from yielding to the guidance of an excited will, from 
following prejudices or creating them, from adopting one side 
of a controversy or party strife for no better reason than that 
some other party has adopted the opposite. 

It would be unnecessary to add to what has already been 
said, even an inventory of other studies, which present se- 
ducing but interminable claims on the life and labor of man. 
It would be vain to open the flood gates of philology, and to 
follow the thousand rills of lano^uao^e which have intersected 
and troubled each other ever since they left their fountains at 
Babel. And we pause in humility before the very portals of 
astronomy, which has revealed to us that we roll and revolve, 
and perhaps again revolve, around we know not what. And 
helpless as animalcules on the surface of a floating globule, 
we are ever striving to see, to explore, and to mark our way 
through the "starry dust" of infinite space. Strong and de- 
voted minds have piled up unreadable tomes, the result of 
their life-long studies and observations, yet few, save the pro- 



13 

fessional and the initiated, attempt to invade the recondite 
sanctuary of their deposit. 

Thus the immense amount of knowledge, general and 
special, true and fictitious, salutary and detrimental, the 
record of which is already in existence, has grown into an in- 
surmountable accumulation, a terra incognita^ which from its 
very magnitude is inaccessible to the inquiring world. Hence 
the economy of the age has introduced the labor-saving 
machinery of periodical literature, which, by substituting 
compendiums and reviews for the more bulky originals, has 
seemed to smooth the up-hill track of knowledge and lighten 
the Sisyphean load of its travellers. But periodical literature, 
useful or frivolous as it may be, and indispensable as it un- 
doubtedly is, has become by its very success inflated to an 
enormous growth, and bids fair in its turn to transcend the 
overtaxed powers of attention of those for whose use it is pre- 
pared. Like our street cars, while it helps forward to their 
destination a multitude of struggling pedestrians, it substitutes 
pressure for exercise, and does not save the fatigue of those 
who are still obliged to stand that they may go. In looking 
forward to another century, it is curious to consider who will 
then review the reviews, and condense, redact and digest the 
compends of compendiums from which the life has already 
been pressed out by previous condensation. 

Since these things arc so, — since in the dying words of 
Laplace, "The known is little, but the unknown is im- 
mense," and 

" Since life can little more supply 
Than just to look about us and to die," 

it is a question of paramount importance, how in this short 
period education can be made to conduce most to tlie pro- 
gress, the efficiency, the virtue, and tlic welfare of man. 

It is not presumptuous to s;iy that education to bo usof'ul 
must, as far as posslbk', bj made slmi)lc, limited, practicable, 



14 

acceptable to the learner, adapted to his character and wants, 
and brought home to his particular case by suhdivislon and 
selection. What is now called a liberal education is a term 
which means something and nothing. Among us it generally 
implies an attendance for four years upon the "curriculum" 
or course of studies prescribed and pursued in some incorpor- 
ated college or university. This attendance may be punctual 
and thorough, or it may be negligent and unprofitable, so that 
while one student makes a limited acquirement of multifarious 
knowledge, another forgets a great part of what he knew on 
entering the college, and prepares to forget the rest as soon as 
he enters upon active life. 

Subdivision and selection afford the principal avenues 
through which men arrive at success in the humbler as 
well as the more conspicuous walks of life. The mechan- 
ical labor of artisans is best performed, and its best results 
obtained, by distributing its duties among a multitude of 
special agents, and this is more or less successfully done in 
proportion as a society, or a craft, is more or less perfectly 
ors^anized. So likewise in the hio^her or more intellectual 
pursuits of life, in which men procure bread by the labor of 
their heads instead of their hands, the number of learned 
professions has been Avithin a short time wonderfully in- 
creased. In the days of our fathers the learned professions 
were accounted three in number, — Law, Physic, and Divin- 
ity. But now more than three times that number afford 
means of honorable subsistence to multitudes of duly edu- 
cated persons. We have now a profession of authors, of 
editors, of lecturers, of teachers, of engineers, of chemists, 
of inventors, of architects and other artists ; and to these 
may be added the better class of soldiers and politicians. 
And all these professions are again subdivided in proportion 
as society advances in its requirements. 

For precisely the same reason that it would not be profit- 



able for experts in a mechanical vocation to distract and 
dissipate their attention among pursuits alien to their tastes 
and qualifications, it can hardly be advantageous for pupils 
and neophytes in learning, to undertake to make themselves 
competent representatives of the various sciences, the liter- 
ary studies, the languages, dead and living, which are now 
professedly taught in our colleges and seminaries. Every 
individual is by nature comparatively qualified to succeed 
in one path of life, and comparatively disqualified to shine in 
another. The first step in education should be for the parties 
most interested, to study, and as far as possible to ascertain, 
the peculiar bent and capacity of a boy's mind. This being- 
done, he should be put upon a course of intellectual and 
physical training corresponding, as far as possible, to that for 
which nature seems to have designed him. But in all cases a 
preparatory general elementary education, such as is furnished 
by our common schools, must be made a prerequisite even to 
qualify him to inquire. The more thorough this preparatory 
training is made, the better it is for the student. But after 
this is completed a special or departmental course of studies 
should be selected, such as appears most likely to conduct him 
to his appropriate sphere of usefulness. Collateral studies of 
different kinds may always be allowed, but they should be 
subordinate and subsidiary, and need not interfere with the 
great objects of his especial education. 

A common colleg^e education now culminates in the student 
})ecomIng what is called a master of arts. But this in a ma- 
jority of instances means simply a master of notliing. It 
means that he has spent much time and some lahur in be- 
sieging tlie many doors of tlie tenq)le of kn()^vledge, witliout 
(iffecting an entrance at any of them. In the })ractical life 
which he is about to fi)llow he will often have occasion to 
lament, be he ever so exemplary and diligent, tliat he has 
wasted on subjects irrelevant to his vocation, botli time and 



16 

labor, which, had they been otherwise devoted, would hare 
prepared and assisted him in the particular work he is called 
on to do. 

Young men, as well as their parents in tlieir behalf, are 
justly ambitious of a collegiate education. Older men often 
regret that they hare not had the opportunity to receive it 
when young. And this is because of the generally acknowl- 
edged fact, that four years, spent under the tuition of faiththl. 
accompHshed and gentlemanly teachers, can hardly fail to im- 
prove their character, language and bearing, as well as their 
store of useful knowledge. It is the habinial contact and 
guidance of superior minds, as well as the progres*sive attri- 
tion with each other, which make young men proficients in 
rectitude, in honor, in science, in poKte hterature, in tact, and 
in manners. And this resnlt will appear, whether they have 
been taught French at TTest Point, or Greek in Harvard or 
Yale. 

It is the province of the Institute of Technology, so largely 
and hberallv sustained bv the Lecrislature. bv the munificence 

c • 

of individuals, and by the untiring labors of its distinguished 
president, to endeavor within its sphere to assist in providing 
for the educational wants of the most practical and progres- 
sive people that the world has seen. By its programme of 
instruction a separate path is provided for all who require to 
accomphsh themselves in any one or more of the especial 
branches of useful knowledge. It would not be just to ignore 
the fact that the same thing has long been doing in several of 
our larger universities, where the practical sciences and the 
modern languages are extensively taught. But these time- 
honored institutions exceed some of their younger associates 
in this respect, that under the name of classical hterature 
thev premise and afterwards cany on a cumbrous burden of 
dead lanoruacres. kept alive through the dark ages and now 
stereotyped in England by the persistent conservatism of a 



ir 

privileged order. I cannot here say much to add to the lucid, 
scholarly and convincing exposition of the state of education 
as it now is in the great schools of England, given in a re- 
cent lecture before this Institute, by one of its professors, on 
the subject of classical and scientific studies.* No one vsdio 
examines this discourse can fail to be impressed with the in- 
judicious exactions made in favor of the dead languages in the 
English schools and universities, their superfluity as means of 
intellectual training, and their limited applicability to the 
wants of the present advanced generation. 

I would not underrate the value or interest of classical 
studies. They give pleasure,, refinement to taste,, breadth to 
thought, and power and copiousness to expression. Any one 
who in this busy world has not much else to do, may well 
turn over by night and by day the " exemplaria Grasca." 
But if, in a practical age and country, he is expected to get a 
useful education;, a competent living, an enlarged power of 
serving oth<ers, or even of saving them from being burdened 
with his support, he can hardly afford to surrender four or 
five years of the most susceptible part of life to acquiring a 
minute familiarity with tongues which are daily becoming 
more obsolete, and each of which is obtained at the sacrifice 
of some more important science or some more desirable lan- 
guage. It may not be doubted that a few years devoted to 
the study of Greek will make a man a more elegant scholar, 
a more accomplished philologist, a more accurate and affluent 
writer, and, if all other things conspire, a more finished orator. 
But of themselves they will not make him what the world 
now demands, a better citizen, a more sagacious statesman, a 
more far-sighted economist, a more able financier, a more 
skilful engineer, manufacturer, merchant, or military com- 
mander. They will not make him a better mathematician, 
physicist, agriculturist, chemist, navigator, physician, lawyer, 

* Professor W. Atkinson. 



18 

arcMtect, painter, or musician. The ancient Greeks knew 
but little, though they knew how to express that little well. 
The moderns know a great deal more, and know how to ex- 
press it intelligiblv. Antiquity has produced many great 
men. Modern times have produced equally great men, and 
more of them. 

It is common at the present day to say that the Greek 
language disciplines the mind, extends the compass and ap- 
plication of thought, and that, by its copiousness, and by its 
TcrsatiHty of inflection and arrangement it trains the mind to 
a better comprehension of words, thoughts, and things. All 
this is no doubt true, and mio-ht have o-reat weio-ht as a o-qy- 

" O SCO 

erning motive in education, were it not that the same ends 
can be more cheaply obtained by the agency of other means. 
Unfortunately for the supremacy of classical literature, all 
civilized countries are at this moment full of distinguished 
men and women who write well and speak well, and who 
have never acquired the learned languages. It is easy to say 
that such persons would have been more distinguished if 
they had known the classics. It is easy to say that Laplace 
would have been a better mathematician, and Faraday a 
better chemist, if by chance they had been duly instructed 
in Greek. But this is gratuitous assumption. The contrary 
result is more probable, inasmuch as the pursuit of classical 
literature would have abstracted just so much time from more 
pertinent and profitable investigations. At this day nobody 
believes that Watt would have made a better steam eno-ine, 
or Stephenson a better locomotive, if they had been taught 
philosophy by Plato himself. 

The ancient languages, if applied to use, are not adequate 
to supply the wants of modern cultivation. Truths and things 
have grown faster than words. Modern customs, arts and 
sciences can be expressed in French or German, but not in 
Greek a^d Latin. A French writer, Professor Goffaux, has 



19 

undertaken to translate Eobinson Crusoe into Latin. The 
translation is successful as far as easy diction and pure latinity 
are concerned. But the language of the Eomans is at fault 
in the islands of the Pacific, and new words must be coined 
to express even imperfectly things which are not coeval with 
the language employed. The world-renowned "man Fri- 
day" is introduced to us under the vicarious name of 
" Yendredi," and when Friday goes a shooting he loads 
his "sclopetum" with " pulvis nitralis." If modern Greece 
should ever become a first-class power among the nations, it 
will have to complete, as it is now trying to do, a vocabulary 
of new terms to express the arts and commerce, the facts and 
fancies, the business and belles lettres of the existing time. 
In other words, it must reenforce its language with a new 
half, not found in the ancient classics. 

The admiration of the old Romans for the Greek language 
and literature had its ori^-ln in the fact that in that ao;e of 
limited civilization they found not much else of the kind to 
admire. They looked to Greece as the fountain of what had 
been achieved in art, philosophy, poetry and eloquence. Of 
consequence it was chosen as the great place of resort for 
educational objects, and Athens became the emporium of 
literary and philosophic instruction. But the Koman youth 
would never have been sent to Athens, had there been, as 
now, a railroad to take them to Paris, or a steamship to bring 
them to America. They would not have consumed their 
time in the groves of Academus, if they could have gained 
admittance to the Ecole Polytechniciue, or to the Poyal 
Institution. 

At the present day we relish the Greek language, from the 
mingled impression not only of its own sui)eri()rity, but of the 
pleasure it gives us and the; pains it has cost us. A\ e r(^lish 
it as the musician enjoys liis nuisic, the matlieniadcian his 
geometry, and the antiquarian his diggings. A^\' are plea?e(I 



20 

that it has been preserved Avith its euphonious intonations, its 
copious expressiveness, and its noble literature. VTe know 
that the spirit of Homer cannot be translated into English, 
any more than the soul of Shakspeare can be done into Greek. 
All languages have their idiomatic expressions of thought, 
and in all of them translation has a killing' effect on the stronir 
])oints of literature. In the opera of Macbetto the term " hell 
broth" in the witch scene, is rendered in Italian as " polto 
inferno." And on the opposite page of the libretto, it is 
served up afresh in English as " infernal soup." It is highly 
probable that the half savage accomplishments of Homer's 
heroes and gods cannot be made duly appreciable in the 
Eno^lish tono-ue. Xevertheless, the modern world can oret on 
without them, and we may be excused for believing that if 
tlie study of Greek should be abandoned as a rec^uisite in our 
universities, althouo^h it would still be cultivated, like other 
exceptional studies, with success and delight by a few devotees, 
yet our practical, bustling and overcrowded generation would 
never again postpone more useful occupations to adopt it as 
an indispensable academical study. 

In regard to success in the world at the present day, it is 
not an academic education, however desirable in any shape it 
may be, that gives a man access to the confidence and general 
favor of his fellow-men, or to the influential posts of society. 
It is native talent, reliability, perseverance and indomitable 
will, that conduct him to the high places of the world. In 
all countries, and most of all in our own country, a contest 
continually goes on between academic education and self 
education, the education that comes from without and the 
education that comes from within. The much cultivated boy, 
who under favor of advantages, performs faithfully his allotted 
tasks, who fulfils the requirements of his teachers, who is 
accustomed to subordinate his own judgment to the dictation 
<jf others : althouo-h he mav hold a hloh rank in the scale of 



21 

proficiency and the amount of acquisition, is liable on arriving 
at manhood, to continue to lean rather than to lead, and 
thence to occupy a secondary place in the struggle for worldly 
distinction. On the other hand, the neglected but independent 
youth, who is brought up in the suggestive school of necessity, 
who becomes orioinal and inventive because his life is a con- 
tinned contest with difficulties, who balances character against 
opportvmity, and individual vigor and patience against external 
guidance ; — such an one from the habit of directing himself 
becomes more competent to direct others, and to wear more 
easily offices of trust and responsibility. It is remarkable 
how many of our distinguished men have been self educated, 
or at least without academic education. Franklin was a 
philosopher, Washington a statesman, Patrick Henry an ora- 
tor, but not by the grace of classical education. Henry Clay 
knew nothing of the Greek language, nor did probably Thomas 
Benton. Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson had rougher 
nursing than that of an alma mater. Eumford, Bowditch and 
Fulton did not develop their intellects under the shades of 
academic seclusion. And if we were to go abroad for exam- 
ples, we should find that Napoleon was no classical scholar, 
and that Peter the Great, Avhen he issued from his lair at 
Moscow to study the civilization of Western Europe, did not 
repair to the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, but 
entered as a working mechanic in the shipyards of Saardam 
and Deptford. 

We need not regret that our country is the field of whoU^- 
some competition between the well taught and the self tauglit, 
between advantai>c on the one side and encrjiijv on the otlier, 
between early develo})ment under assistance and sh)w maturity 
under difficulties. The success of cither condition awakens 
and stimuUites tlie zeal of the other. 

There are many j)ersons who even in tliis ngc speak In 
terms of deroiration of what are called utilitarian studies, in 



22 

contrast with classical and ideal literature, as if pursuits 
which tend directly to the preservation and happiness of man 
were less worthy of his attention than those which may be 
founded in fancy, exaggeration and passion. Poetry, art and 
fiction have souorht for the beautiful and sublime in creations 
which are imaginary and often untrue, which " o'er inform th 2 
pencil and the pen," and attract because they are mysterious 
and inaccessible. But in the present age, fact has overtaken 
fancy and passed beyond it. We have no need to create new 
miracles, nor imagine them, Avhen the appetite for wonder is 
more than satiated with reality, and objects of deliglit and 
amazement confront us in the walks of daily life. I know 
nothing in nature or art more beautiful than a railroad train, 
when it shoots by us with a swiftness that renders its inmates 
invisible, and winds oif its sinuous way among mountains and 
forests, spanning abysses, cleaving hills asunder, and travelling 
onward to its destination, steadily, smoothly, unerringly, as a 
migratory bird advances to the polar regions. And I know 
of nothing more sublime than in the hold of an ocean steam- 
ship, to look on the mightiest enginery that has been raised 
by man, as it wields its enormous limbs like a living thing, 
and heaves and pants and rolls and plunges — urged onward 
by the struggling of the imprisoned elements. 

The traveller passes daily by the never-ending rows of posts 
and wires which mark the pathway of the electric telegraph, 
until at length by their very frequency they are blended in 
the inert features of the landscape and cease to attract atten- 
tion. Yet, all the while, invisible thought is riding on those 
wires, and mind is answerina; to mind over a thousand miles 
of distance. 

The half fabulous siege of Troy has been made immortal in 
the epics of Homer and Virgil, and we are led by their poetry 
to admire the achievements of heathen gods and of heroes 
descended from them. We stand In awe at the exploits of 



23 

primitive warriors with the same emotions with which we 
afterwards mark in history the real deeds and eras of great 
mihtary commanders. But however much we may be im- 
pressed with the imagined spectacle of a host of disciplined 
barbarians fighting with swords and. bucklers, we cannot 
keep out of sight that they would have been chaff before the 
wind in the presence of modern militar}^ science. Ulysses and 
Agamemnon were ten years in taking the city of Troy. 
Ulysses Grant with his batteries would have taken it in ten 
minutes. Artists, historians and poets depict even now the 
memorable battles of Alexander and Ctesar. But half a dozen 
shells would have scattered the Macedonian phalanx, and the 
Roman Empire could not have stood many days after a 
modern Avar steamer should have found its way up the Tiber. 

The march of military improvement has not yet halted in 
its course. The great war of American conservation has 
been eminently a war of science, and has changed by its in- 
ventions the whole face of modern conflicts. Huo^e forts and 
strong war ships no longer protect harbors from the inroads 
of invulnerable enemies. The wooden walls of England, so 
long her defence and her boast, like the walls of Jericho, 
have fallen flat before the sound of the distant crashing of 
rams and monitors and torpedoes. If the time shall ever 
come when classical readers shall tire at the monotonous 
championship of Trojans, Greeks and llutulians, they will 
kindle with wonder over that miracle of romance and reality, 
" The Bay Eight " of Mobile, by Henry Howard Brownell. 

It is the duty of educational institutions to adapt tliom- 
sclves to the wants of the phice and time in which tliey exist. 
It needs no uncommon penetration to see that we are non 
living in a great transition period, and that the world Is rest- 
ing its future hopes, and cpiieting its future fears In rc>llanc(^ 
on an educated and cnlio-htened democracv. AVIumi Andrew 
Johnson, at the inauguration ceremony of 181)."), t^omewhat 



24 

hastily declared himself a plebeian, dependent on the will of 
the people, and applied the same impeachment to his fellow 
functionaries, — like Paul of old, he was not mad, but spoke 
forth the words of truth and soberness. The last few years 
of history, the greatest and most momentous that the world 
has ever witnessed, bear testimony to the power of an edu- 
cated common people, to perceive and to carry forward 
their own true interests. Against the whiles of an astute 
and determined oligarchy, against the frowns of foreign 
privileged orders, amid the vicissitudes of good and evil for- 
tune, this great people have advanced to their final triumph, 
not of revolution but of conservation, under the guidance of 
men like themselves, of men who had been cleavers of wood 
and sewers of 2:arments, who had wrought as farmers, as 
tanners, and as homely manufacturers, wdio knew the genius 
and character of their constituents and the roads throuo^h 
which they were to be conducted to natural and necessary 
success. 

At this moment no nation of the globe can be called more 
truly powerful than one which has peacefully absorbed into 
its interior depths half a million of veterans, with discipline in 
their history, arms in their hands and education in their 
heads. The most formidable ruler whom the world now 
knows, is a self-educated man, who could hardly read and 
write at the age of twenty. 

It is a fact so generally admitted, in this country at least, 
as to have become almost a truism, that prescriptive and 
hereditary positions are declining in social influence. Per- 
sonal unworthiness or incompetency cannot be covered up by 
personal privilege. It is better to be the founder of a great 
name, than its disreputable survivor. When a marshal of 
France, Duke of Abrantes and Governor of Paris, was re- 
minded by others of the obscurity of his birth, he proudly 
replied, ''^ Moi je suis mon ancetre^^ (I am my own ancestor). 



25 

In this great and original country, which is now treading in 
the van of a new reformation, we have thousands yet un- 
taught, who are to become ancestors in fame, ancestors in 
fortune, ancestors in science, ancestors in virtue. May their 
descendants be worthy of them. 

These are the men who may well claim to "constitute a 
State." They are, as it were, the granite substratum which 
underlies the rich coal fields and the arable soils of the earth's 
exterior surface. Like that they wiU last when softer and 
richer tracts shall have been swept away. Yet a conti- 
nent as extensive and various as ours should be capable of 
furnishing all soils and materials for all needful and desirable 
productions. When the necessaries which sustain life are 
provided, the luxuries which adorn and gratify it must follow 
in their order. " In every country," says Buckle, " as soon 
as the accumulation of wealth has reached a certain point, 
the produce of each man's labor becomes more than sufficient 
for his support ; it is no longer necessary that all should 
work ; and there is found a separate class, the members 
of which pass their lives for the most part in the pursuit of 
pleasure; a very few, however, in the acquisition and dif- 
fusion of knowledge." This statement is a good exposition 
of the law which rules in the affairs of this country ; it con- 
tains the danger and the safety, the bane and the antidote, of 
our social destiny. In a nation in which " the government is 
made for the people, and not the people for the government," 
whose fundamental requisite is "the greatest good of tlio 
greatest number," education, elementary and practical, such 
as common schools can furnish, must be made accessible to all 
who can be withdrawn, either from labor or idleness, for a 
sufficient time to realize its advantage. Afterwards those 
whom favor of fortune or strength of will has qualified 
to approach higher paths of intellectual culture should be 



26 

encouraged, assisted and excited to enter and occupy either 
one or many of the more difficult fields of hterature and science, 
preferring those that best harmonize with the adopted path 
which is to be the occupation of life. And as to the residuary 
class, not numerous in any country, to whom is left the option 
of pursuing pleasure or knowledge, it is fortunate when there 
is judgment enough to perceive that these two objects can be 
identified in one pursuit. Knowledge is never so successftilly 
cultivated as when it becomes a pleasure, and no pleasure is 
more permanent than the successful pursuit of knowledge, 
combined, as it should be, with moral progress. Natural 
gifts and variations of aptitude qualify men to tread with 
advantage the special paths of art and science ; and such 
gifts are most frequently born in and with them, and cannot 
be imparted from without. A musical ear, an artistic eye and 
a poetic sense are not to be created in any man. We might as 
well expect to endow him with the sagacity of the hound, the 
quick ear of the hare, or the lightning sense of danger which 
preserves and insures the perilous life of the summer insect. 

The man of robust though ungainly fi-ame, may make a 
first-rate laborer; the slender, shy and delicate youth may 
shine in the walks of literature ; the man of strong voice and 
prompt and comprehensive intellect may take precedence as 
an orator. But transpose these conditions, and we have a re- 
sult of mistakes and failures. What God hath put asunder, 
man cannot well join together. 

I have dwelt on the importance of a special and well se- 
lected path of study as leading to success in education, and 
not less in subsequent hfe. Nevertheless, the necessity of ab- 
solute confinement to this path is to be accepted with great 
modifications. A youth with vigorous and varied powers 
will not easily restrict himself to a beaten track, but as his 
mind grows he wdll become discursive in his aspirations. He 



27 

will carry along with him, not only the adopted or select pur- 
suit which has enabled him to serve, to impress or to excel 
others, but he will also be prompted, both before and after he 
has grown up, to entertain himself and to extend his relations 
with those who surround him, by devoting his surplus time, 
which his very success has given him, to the enlargement of 
his sphere of occupation. Every professional man, however 
efficient and prosperous he may be in the discharge of his 
daily routine, must have, if he would not rust, some collateral 
pursuits, some by-play of life, in which he may recreate him- 
self and keep up a wholesome freshness by intercourse with 
congenial minds, and at times with the ideal world. Our 
country has been called in reproach the arena of a cultivated 
mediocrity. Happy would it be if all mankind coidd be 
brought up even to that level. A cultivated mediocrity is 
the boundless soil from out of which must spring at times the 
vigorous and favored shoots of genius, sparse and exceptional 
though they may be, yet sufficient to supply the just needs of 
mankind, — various and eccentric in their character, yet con- 
spiring to dignify and ennoble our race. Men cannot all be 
geniuses, yet there are many in whom exist the germs of art, 
poetry and eloquence, the love of beauty, the sense of the 
ideal, and the perception of the unseen. These are the men 
who, when discovered and brought out, delight, attract, and 
impress the world ; who are generally appreciated, though 
not often followed ; whose presence and inspiration are neces- 
sary to the enjoyment and the upward progress of the human 
race. They spread the sails in the adventurous and perilous 
voyage of life, while others hold the helm and labor at the 
ropes. 

Our country, with its vast territory, its inviting regions, 
its various population, its untrammelled freedom, looks for- 
ward now to a future which hitherto it has hardlv dared to 



28 

anticipate. Let us hopefully await the period when the world 
shall do homage to our national refinement, as it now does to 
our national strength ; when the column shall have received 
its Corinthian capital ; and when the proportions of the native 
oak shall be decorated, but not concealed, by the cultivated 
luxuriance of vines and flowers. 



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